The Hoa Lo Prison Camp During the Vietnam war many U.S. soldiers became prisoners of war (POWs). Some of those prisoners ended up in prisons such as the Hoa Lo prison. The Hoa Lo prison, located in the middle of the city of Hanoi, was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. It got this nickname because the building was formally the old Hotel Metropole. The prison was North Vietnam's main penitentiary, and the Administrative headquarters for the country's entire prison system. There were approximately one hundred and forty Americans without passports or portfolios locked up in Hoa Lo Prison Camp. Hoa Lo w